Festive Season = baking and eating

Despite being in the midst of the 'O' level Examination week, I am busy helping my mum out with the baking of the festive goodies.


Since young, my mum has always asked me to help her out in the kitchen, be it cooking, baking or preparing dishes and drinks for the guests.


I never hesitated at the offer as I loved to see how my mum used the various methods that were passed down from her Peranakan ancestors, to cook. There were so many techniques and beliefs, just to make a simple kueh kueh.


One belief that I find really interesting, was to NEVER have any disbelief in the raising of the cake.


I, being curious, decided to test that belief one day. When my mum was steaming a cake, I said aloud "Why never huat one?I don't think it will loh".


Just then my mum turned vicious and began scolding me in the usual, Peranakan language. She apologized continuously to the cake. But true enough, the cake never did huat.


Now it may seem like a miscalculation in the amount of ingredients used, but believe me, as we tried doing the same cake the next day, with the same amount of ingredients, only that I never said a word. And amazingly, the cake did huat.


But from then on, however, my mum never trusted me and thus, never asked me to help out whenever she was baking any cake.


Now, I only help out in the tedious shaping of cookies, kueh tarts, kueh mahmut(especially this) and biscuits. I am also a tool for taste-testing, a profession very much shared with my dog, who chooses which kueh kueh is nice, and devours it ravenously. And leaves the not so nice ones alone while looking at me in disdain, as though I had purposely given him the bad ones.